Heaviness & Overwheming Love: The Road Home

So here we are.

 

Headed home.

 

Sitting in an airport in Detroit, just passing these last few hours before we get on a plane to go home. We finally get to see our families and friends, sleep in our own beds, get some decent sleep, and get back to our normal lives. All this is so exciting, and we can't wait to get home.

 

But there's a heaviness as well.

 

We're coming home different. Changed. We aren't the same people that left Texas two weeks ago. We've grown to know people, crossed cultural boundaries, built rapport, trust, mutual respect, and love, only to have to leave those relationships behind, unsure of the future. For them. For that beautiful part of the world, across the ocean.  For these incredible people we were blessed to spend this small amount of time with.

 

How do you deal with that? With the knowledge that you were connected with someone, for just a brief moment, only to separate, never to see each other again, not knowing what will happen to them? How will God continue to work? Will they continue to find Him? Will they achieve the life of safety and acceptance they so desperately crave?

 

I don't know. I don't know how to reconcile that. But what I do know, is that God is good, and all-knowing, and all-powerful. While it is my tendency to think that we could've done more, we should've done more, for the refugees, the ALPHA trainees, and the beautiful Wilson family, I am sweetly reminding that we did exactly what God called us to do. It wasn't our plan that was carried out in Hungary. It was God's. He knew exactly what He was doing, sending us across the sea, to encounter broken and beautiful souls. To touch them briefly, to open our hearts to theirs, to be met with openness and love in return. To be wrecked by the amount of hurt, fear, and longing to belong that permeates the world. But also, to be overwhelmed by the presence of God's love and peace in those broken places. To see Him clearly, working in and through these people, and in and through us. Whether it was the refugees, the ALPHA trainees, or the Wilsons, God was so present. He was so active. His hand was so obvious.

 

And then. Then, the spiritual retreat. The three days we got to spend as a team to close out the trip, being shepherded and led into the presence of the Lord even more so. Spending those days together, pouring out our hearts to God and one another, receiving reassurance, overwhelming love, humility, clarity, and healing. How fitting. How like God is it, to pour into us on a trip where we believed we would be the ones doing the pouring. And the loving. That it was for us, as well. This trip wasn't just about the refugees, and ALPHA trainees, or the Wilsons. It was about us. It was about us being reminded of the sweet Spirit and incredible, gentle love that is always constant in our lives.

 

So not only are we returning changed by our experiences with the people we went to minister to, but we are returning changed for the better by the healing power of God. So don't expect to see the same Ken, Blake, Liz, Cathi, Jay, and Jayme that left two weeks ago. We have been transformed. By heartbreak, pain, struggle, and humility, but ultimately, by the wondrous power and marvelous love of our great and gentle Creator.

 

We'll see y'all soon.

 

Jayme